Alex Currie: From Minnesota Logger to North Dakota Livestock Breeder

Who was Alex Currie?

Alex Currie (1859-1937) is remembered in North Dakota as a breeder who brought imported stock to the prairie. According to the Hall of Great Westerners biography, he began in the logging camps of Minnesota, moved to Cando, North Dakota, homesteaded there and farmed, and eventually built his land to 2,720 acres.

His honors came from that mix of farming and breeding. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum inducted him into the Hall of Great Westerners in 1959, twenty-two years after his death. The museum page is brief, and no longer biography turned up in the sources we could open, so this profile marks that limit and fills in the surrounding history of North Dakota agriculture.

From Minnesota logging to a Cando homestead

Currie's first documented work was in logging in Minnesota. That was hard seasonal labor, and it was a common first step for men who later took up land on the northern plains. From there he moved to Cando, the seat of Towner County in northeastern North Dakota, where he homesteaded and farmed.

He did not stay a one-quarter-section farmer. The museum says he built his land to 2,720 acres, which is more than four square miles. That scale gave him room to carry breeding stock as well as crops. North Dakota's own agriculture history notes that wheat farming boomed in the eastern part of the state in the late 1800s at the same time that cattle ranching grew in the west, so a farmer in his region sat in a growing grain economy.

Imported horses and Shorthorn cattle

The detail that sets Currie apart is where his animals came from. The museum records that he imported stallions and mares from Belgium and purebred Shorthorn cattle from Scotland to build his herds. The sources do not say what he paid or how he marketed the offspring.

Horses were in strong demand. After the winter of 1886 and 1887 shook the range cattle business, North Dakota Studies notes, some ranchers moved toward horses because work horses were needed for farm power and transportation. A breeder with good stallions was serving a real market. Purebred bulls were also being brought in elsewhere in the state, since Theodore Roosevelt and Huidekoper imported them to improve range herds, as described by North Dakota Studies.

Livestock associations and public service

Currie also put his time into the organizations that tied breeders together. He served as president of the North Dakota Shorthorn Breeders Association and as a director of the North Dakota Livestock Breeders Association. Those groups held shows and sales, kept breed standards and gave smaller producers a way to compare stock.

He took on local government as well, serving two terms as a Commissioner of Towner County. County commissioners handled roads, budgets and local services, which was practical work for a landowner with herds to move and a farm to run.

Learn more

Currie's story sits at the border between farming and ranching in North Dakota. The North Dakota Studies agriculture history gives the wider background, including the 1886 and 1887 winter that killed about 80 percent of the state's open-range cattle. For stories about breeding and ranch life, visit the ranching section of farm.FM or read a farm.FM story about Shorthorn breeders.